Transcend

by Natalia Jaster

  No longer needed by Anger’s side, Malice licks his bloody chops and hops sideways over the parapet’s ledge, dumping himself into the fray—right into a group of deities who outnumber him. Popping up like a pogo stick, he gives a raucous cackle, his hickory bow pumped with arrow after arrow. Lack of direction aside, he bashes everyone out of the way, his strikes victorious—too victorious, too ambitious.

  Envy ducks an incoming arrow, then squints beyond the crenellations to follow Malice’s trajectory. All becomes evident. He’s homing in on the cloaked ruler who’d shot him months ago, nearly ending his life.

  The more ground Malice covers, the more violent his speed. The Court member doesn’t see Malice coming until the demon god tackles him with the force of a battering ram. They roll in a flurry of arms and limbs, lanterns shattering in their wake.

  When the ruler identifies his adversary, his brows pitch in shock and remorse, then slant in defensiveness. Shit. Malice has muscles and calculation on his side, but from the looks of it, he isn’t about to use either trait wisely against the sovereign. He’s too rife with vengeance to think straight.

  “Wonder!” Envy roars, but she’s already got Malice in her line of sight. Diving from the tree, she races across the ground and reaches the brawl just as Malice cracks the ruler’s jaw, blood spurting even from this distance. The monarch has already done a number on Malice as well, both of them covered in welts and cuts.

  When Malice fastens the male to the flowering field, he steals one of the ruler’s lava rock arrows and raises it, ready to plunge the tip into the victim’s heart. Just like that same victim had once done to Malice.

  Wonder scrambles to a halt and shrieks, “Malice, no!”

  No. Not like that.

  At the sound of her voice, Malice freezes while glowering down at the ruler. Envy is too far to confirm, but he imagines that demon god’s face twitching with as much temptation as resilience. Eventually, Malice drops the arrow and drives his fist into the male’s visage three times, rendering the monarch unconscious.

  Wonder hauls Malice to his feet. The tag team lunges into a clumsy hug, then hurtles into the scrimmage while keeping close to one another.

  Envy whips his gaze around, assessing the devastation. Piloted by deities, the fleet of dragonflies whoosh around the stargazer, which stands proud and unblemished, its telescope craning. Patches of flames erupt from the lanterns and slither across the underbrush. The fortification walls crumble in numerous places.

  Andrew and Love are a magnetic pair. The former shoots a cluster of frost arrows from his crossbow, creating an opaque fog. The effect blinds Love’s opponents, so that her kicks make quick work of them, a trio of archers toppling around her.

  Although Love has regained the power to infuse her arrows with love itself, she curtails the magic.

  Anger, who also recouped his power months ago, operates with the same restraint. Although he could defuse his assailants’ tempers, he refuses to take such advantage. That would only paint him as a hypocrite.

  As iron arrows fly from his weapon, he dilutes the magic, relying instead on aim and velocity.

  He fights steadily. That is, until an archer targets Merry.

  At which point, hysteria contorts Anger’s profile. He reels his longbow toward the archer.

  But then a dragonfly lowers itself before Anger, commanded by a silhouette wielding an agate arrow—which punctures his stomach.

  28

  Envy

  Time stops. So does Envy’s heart.

  He watches as the scene plays in slow motion. Pain tears Anger’s eyes wide open, the pupils fattening like blisters while crimson dribbles from the wound. Staring ahead in a daze, his knees hit the foundation.

  No.

  Just. No.

  No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No!

  Time speeds up. It happens too fast.

  Anger, nodding at Envy in encouragement during training. Anger, keeping their class calm after Wonder’s torture. Anger, thinking that none of them except Love knows that he’s afraid of snowstorms. Anger, protecting Love’s secret when she defied her rulers for Andrew. Anger, banished for caring about his peers more than his sovereigns. Anger, looking at Merry as if she’s every star in the universe. Anger, rallying hundreds of archers. Anger, offering a rare laugh when Envy manages to tease him.

  Anger. His friend.

  With a snarl, Envy nocks his weapon. The twang of a string looses another shot toward his friend, which Envy blocks.

  And a third shot, stymied this time by a wooden arrow.

  Malice’s arrow. The god lands beside Envy, his bow poised and his breathing erratic. Behind the shredded sleeve of his leather sweater, his fletching-and-quill tattoo contorts with his movements.

  Together, they arm themselves to obstruct any additional strikes meant for Anger.

  Nevertheless, all it takes is one.

  Anger casts them a sideways glance—then he topples over.

  Envy bellows. The sound catches Merry’s attention, which alerts her to an incoming attack. Her neon arrow cuts through the archers’ shot and blows the male off his haunches.

  She beams at Envy, assuming his shriek had been a warning—but then her eyes slide toward her lover’s motionless form. “Anger!” she wails.

  Her irises catch the offending agate arrow before it vanishes from his stomach. Recognition dawns as she spots the ruling goddess, whose arms visibly shake, the monarch’s features ashen from what she’s done.

  Anger was once the Court’s most loyal and trusted archer.

  Struggling to compose herself, the monarch flies off. Then something happens that Envy hadn’t thought possible.

  Fury suffuses Merry’s features. Clear, bright fury.

  The goddess tears ahead on her skateboard, bulldozing every opposing figure who gets in her path. Launching into the air, Merry spins and fires with each revolution, pitting the deities who try to stop her, turning them into pincushions.

  She lands, then surges toward the ruler, her teeth gnashing as she executes a dexterous skateboard trick, using the stargazer as a ramp to vault back into the air. Rotating mid-flight, she hammers into the ruler with a neon arrow.

  It punches into the female’s abdomen, blowing the monarch off the dragonfly. When she crashes into a wall and slides into a fern bush, several fighters gawk at the pastel-haired misfit who’d brought down a sovereign.

  Merry pays them no heed. Landing, she wheels the final feet, dashes off the board, and hurls herself at Anger’s side.

  Envy and Malice rush toward the havoc, falling on all fours next to Anger, while Merry uses her tulle skirt to staunch the blood. “Anger!” she cries, tears streaming down her face. “Anger, don’t! No, please don’t! Please!”

  “Merry,” he coughs, blood drizzling from his mouth as he cups her cheeks. “Merry, shh.”

  “Here,” Envy says, clattering from his armor, whisking off his shirt, and using the garment to press against Anger’s wound. Remembering what Sorrow once told him about tending to injuries, he instructs Merry to keep it pressed in a certain way.

  “But we n-need to move h-him,” she weeps. “If s-someone—”

  “Don’t worry,” Malice says in raspy tenor. “I’ve got your backs.”

  “Malice,” Anger grates out. “Show them who they banished.”

  All hell breaks loose across Malice’s delighted face. “Like I need your permission, mate.”

  Anger chuckles weakly while Malice bounces off the ground and darts off. When a trinity of immortals besiege him, the demon god dances around them. He ducks repeatedly out of fist range. Each time he pops up, Malice changes expression—crossing his eyes, then sticking out his tongue, then grinning like a prankster, to the point where his adversaries get confused and end up boxing one another instead.

  With a maddened laugh, Malice jumps over them and makes a beeline for any immortal bent on attacking Anger’s huddle.

  Envy helps Merry prop Anger against a wall.
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br />   Anger’s bloody fingers grasp Envy’s shoulder. “Bring her back to us,” he heaves out, puffing though the pain.

  Merry concurs. She nods, her skin streaked with dirt and tears. “Win her back.”

  Almighty Fates. Why should Envy do that? What do these two—and the rest of this band—understand that he doesn’t?

  But it’s no use lying to himself. No matter how much he tries extinguishing Sorrow from his mind, she remains at the forefront with every nock of his arrows, with every target, with every corner that he turns.

  Yes, he’s been searching for her this whole time. No, he doesn’t know if she’s all right. And yes, it’s killing him.

  “Curse you,” Envy sighs to Anger. “Curse you for looking so pretty while covered in blood. And curse you for taking advantage of Uncle Envy’s vulnerability.”

  Anger’s levels him with a slanted grin. “Call me a selfish myth.”

  That makes eight of them.

  Envy takes off. He jumps onto the nearest crenellation and spots a dragonfly free of its rider. The sight resurrects a memory of something he’d told Sorrow.

  As a youth, I’d try and talk with them. Not that they understood me.

  He shouldn’t. He’s not allowed. He may offend the creatures.

  Envy makes a flying leap onto the dragonfly’s back and practically falls off. Teetering sideways, he grasps its thick hide and scrambles upright. On a whim, he speaks to the creature like he used to in the cove. Though why he does this now, as an adult, makes no sense.

  But maybe this winged being had been part of that memory. Maybe it lived in the cove when a younger version of Envy tried to communicate. And maybe it remembers him.

  Maybe he’s being asinine. But maybe the creature comprehends anyway, because it accepts his weight and heads where he’d asked it to take him. It soars with Envy, looping around each tier of the fortification and passing over the blooming crest. The air bats at his hair, and his bare chest pebbles as he scans the carnage.

  Only one face is missing. He hunts the vista for a glimpse of an ice arrow.

  Pity and Kindness wrestle with Cruelty. Courage pits himself against Fear. Surprise crosses arrows with Shock.

  A flash of sapphire archery confirms Nostalgia’s presence. He must have recovered his weapons from the sea, too. Presently, he squares off with an archer whom Envy cannot identify among the pandemonium.

  Echo contends with Harmony, neither of them able to get the upper hand.

  Siren’s copper tresses glint as she coasts atop a dragonfly, heading toward Envy. Her eyes dash across his face and waver. With a sad smile, she steers the creature away from him, her departure a fracture to the chest, immobilizing Envy.

  Or does this paralysis have to do with the projectile homing in on his sternum?

  Cursing, Envy tightens his thighs around the dragonfly and nocks his bow—but an ice arrow intercepts the strike. It illuminates the cliffs, rendering every crest and crevice of the world momentarily visible.

  His head snaps toward the source. Scanning the expanse of water, it occurs to Envy how the lake reflects this war, turning it upside down.

  Turning upside down the slender figure in a shredded skirt.

  Envy’s heart thrashes. Positioned on the opposite side of the water, Sorrow brandishes her weapon, anxiety distorting her lacerated face as she disables Grief.

  Grief, who’s not a rebel. Grief, who’s a loyal. Grief, who’d been about to annihilate Hope and Joy.

  Sorrow has been fighting for a while now. But on which side?

  While Grief rolls across the grass in an unconscious heap, Sorrow jogs backward with the same harrowed expression that she’d worn while telling Envy about her memories of war. She could have ended that deity, but she hadn’t.

  She doesn’t want to extinguish anyone.

  However, she might make an exception. Envy realizes this as she spots him.

  Despite the leagues separating them, their eyes crash. The jolt produces a chemical reaction. Something toxic, flammable, spellbinding.

  Now he knows what pain feels like.

  And maybe one other emotion—a persistent feeling that’s been shadowing him like a pest, that’s been creeping up on him since the day he first lost his mind and touched her. That infamous moment in time, when he’d traced her sarcastic mouth, those lips painted a brooding purple to match her hair.

  In the past, her chronic scowls, dreary clothes like an overcast sky, and perpetual middle finger used to nauseate him.

  Hidden beneath the tough exterior? The watery texture of hurt. The wine-and-fig taste of rapture.

  Those are the parts of her that he wasn’t supposed to discover. Those are the parts that came later.

  She should mean nothing to him, because she’s the last person he has ever wanted. But instead of stopping, they’d continued to touch, and they’d torn each other apart. And then, because there’s always one more way to fuck up, they’d finished the job by tempting one another.

  Yet his transcendence hadn’t begun until the instant he’d asked her a question: What’s your pleasure?

  And in return, she had asked him a question: What’s your pain?

  To this day, to this very night, their answers chip away at his soul.

  Standing opposite each other now, they face off across a chasm.

  Allies against enemies. Enemies against allies.

  Somehow, at some point, the two of them had chosen opposing sides. He can’t remember how it came to this, how they ended up fighting for different endings.

  With the battle raging across the summit, his fingers tighten around his bow. On reflex, she nocks her own weapon. As they aim at one another, he smirks mournfully. This was only ever going to go one way, with only one outcome.

  That’s fate.

  So now he knows what pain feels like, every shift of its curves, every sigh of its breath, and every glint of its irises. He also knows what that other, pesky, final emotion feels like. It’s a permanent one, a stain that he can’t rub off.

  He recalls when destiny had intervened, pairing them against their consent. What’s a god to do when his match is the last person he can stand? He resists.

  That’s what he does. That’s what he did.

  And what does she do? Naturally, she makes him regret it.

  Does he regret it still? No. Not one moment with her.

  Their arrows tremble, and their bows shake, but neither of them fires.

  But I don’t want to follow them into war. A giant part of me wants to stop them.

  I’ve had enough of war to last a hundred lives.

  You don’t want to know that side of pain, Envy.

  Sorrow, weeping over the death of a soldier. Sorrow, caressing Wonder’s hair during the goddess’s torture. Sorrow, wearing a bandage across her nose, perhaps like some emblem of hurt and healing. Sorrow, cutting herself for…for those who have suffered under her watch.

  Just like that, Envy knows. He knows why those old cuts exist. And he knows why she abandoned him, what the Court said to coerce her, what they’d threatened to do.

  Out of nowhere, a goddess rams into Sorrow from the sideline. They go down, arms and limbs flailing.

  Envy sees red. Zooming on the dragonfly, he twirls his arrow and lets it go.

  In a nebula of light, the archeress rolls off Sorrow. Sprawled on the grass, his spitfire glances at him with tentative hope, then gains her feet to combat another archer, and another, and another.

  She’s fast, her shirt fanning around her as she spins. And now he sees.

  Sorrow isn’t attacking either side. She’s merely on the offensive, defending herself against anyone who targets her. Mid-flip, she looses an ice projectile that flings the last deity backward.

  Closer to the ground, Envy thanks the dragonfly and bounds off, dread pumping him with adrenaline. His heels slam into the grass, but a dozen leagues and the water separate them.

  So many harsh truths. So much change.

  That
earlier conversation around the lantern rekindles. The one about a myth.

  The stars will shine their greatest when a deity asks for the truth. But a deity will only receive the truth if he or she is ready to hear the answer. And that immortal will only be ready to hear the answer if he or she is ready to change.

  What truth? What answer? What change?

  As all of it swirls in his mind, he comprehends. They both do. Since this fight began, they’ve known.

  Myths, truths, changes. Legends, lust, love.

  Envy meets Sorrow’s gaze and calls out to her. Through the stars, he calls out to all of them, to all of their friends.

  Are you ready for the truth?

  Because he is. He’s so very ready. But he needs them to be as well.

  He senses the collective pause, from wherever each of them stands. Twisting, he catches sight of this rebel band, positioned at various intervals. Somehow, they find his gaze, collective realization dawning.

  But how do they tell the stars they’re ready for truth? And how will the stars answer? How will the celestials prompt the change?

  There’s only one way to find out. When they incline their heads, Envy twists back to Sorrow, who nods. Together, they make a choice.

  They stop shooting. Eight sets of weapons lower.

  As the battle rages, their band waits.

  The dragonflies sense it first. Dumping their riders, the creatures scatter.

  As the hemisphere begins to rattle like loose pebbles, every god and goddess stalls. Trepidation crawls up Envy’s spine. Had they misjudged? Done the wrong thing?

  From a distance, he detects Malice’s words. “The fuck…?” the rage god draws out while tugging Wonder close and starting to retreat with her.

  Andrew is less subtle. And much more deafening. “Ohhhhh shiiiiit!” Defying his limp, he hauls ass toward the stargazer fortress. Snatching Love’s hand on the way, he hauls the baffled goddess with him while yelling at everyone, “Foreshadowing! Motifs! Myths! Run! Run-like-fuck-get-out-of-the-open-the-stars-are-answering!”